Reviewed by: Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards James R. McKean Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, by Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, and Barbara E. Taylor. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2005. 198 pp. ISBN 0471684201. The president of American University was recently embroiled in a bitter struggle with its board of trustees amid questions of impoverished leadership and governance. Contemporary commentary (Fain, 2005) suggested that this incident sheds light on governing boards that lack the cohesion and procedures to deal with a widely publicized scandal. Questions arise throughout the nation concerning the current structure of boards of trustees at institutions of higher learning or other nonprofit organizations. Against this chaotic landscape, Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, and Barbara E. Taylor posit a reframed structure of nonprofit board governance that integrates seemingly divergent contemporary leadership and governance theories into a congruent stream they call Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards. This book is directed primarily to nonprofit boards of trustees, administrators of institutions of higher learning, and academics interested in a greater understanding of nonprofit organizations. The implications for higher education are primarily twofold with consequences inherent in both. Administrators and academics may embrace or ignore this construct but will nevertheless derive value from understanding its formulation and purpose. These implications are particularly consequential at institutions with boards of trustees choosing to govern within this framework. Chait et al. lay the foundation for their book by articulating four basic premises that inspire the remaining chapters: 1. Today's nonprofit managers have transitioned into leaders. 2. Contemporary trustees function as managers when compared with their historical counterparts. 3. Nonprofit boards operate within the framework of three distinct governance modes defined by the authors as fiduciary, strategic, and generative. 4. Boards operating equally within the framework of these three modes of governance are more effective than boards who limit their functional activities to one or two modes. To deepen our academic understanding of governance and leadership theories, the authors employ organizational mental maps to illustrate a board's governance mode. According to the authors, "A good street map will tell us what we need to know about a neighborhood's layout, but the mental maps [emphasis added] tell us [End Page 716] what people value in that neighborhood and how they inhabit it" (p. 26). The book suggests that the same is true for organizations. We view or see the organization from our mental map, which in turn influences our work modes. The authors' metaphor brought additional clarity and a new perspective from which to view their governance assumptions as well as the organizational theories they reference. The authors devote a chapter to defining each of their governance modes in detail. The reader will relate Type I or fiduciary governance to the stereotypical view of nonprofit boards by the functions they perform—auditing and oversight. In this mode, governance opportunities are limited by board committee structure, fixed agendas, and a mental map that sees the organization as a bureaucracy. More relevant to the authors' purpose is the broader context of board governing that transcends traditional Type I oversight. In this context, Type II or strategic governing, the primary attention shifts from "conformance to performance" (p. 51). A Type II mental map suggests that the board becomes strategic in scope by looking beyond internal to external factors that shape governance. It is at this point that the authors' governance theories begin their congruent path into governance as leadership inspired by contemporary organizational theorists. According to Mintzberg (1994), "strategic planning is not a linear process where rational analysis leads to expressed goals. The limits of this linear game plan squelch creativity and synthesis, the necessary catalysts for new ideas to blossom" (p. 56). While some boards of trustees recognize the value of strategic planning to accomplish the board vision, the authors postulate that, more often than not, their result falls short of the attempt. According to the authors, trustees are too often engaged in strategic planning from a Type I mental map. From this perspective, they view their strategic role as the auditing and oversight of management's plan. Conversely, a...